The Little Engines that Could've:
The Calculating Machines of Charles Babbage

A thesis presented
by
Bruce Collier

to
The Department of History of Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the subject of
History of Science

Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

August, 1970
Copyright reserved by the author.

Preface

Charles Babbage's invention of the computer is
something like the weather. Everyone working with computers
for the last two decades has been talking about it, but
nothing has been done. Every historical introduction to
a computer text contains a section on Babbage, often
extensive; but they are all based on the quite scanty
information about the Analytical Engine published during
the nineteenth century. The immense amount of manuscript
material concerning Babbage extant in England has remained
essentially untouched.

The one hoped for exception was Maboth Moseley's
Irascible Genius (London, 1964). a full length biography
of Babbage. Moseley consulted the Babbage correspondence
at the British Museum and the unpublished biography of
Babbage written by his friend Harry Wilmot Buxton; yet
despite the fact that Moseley was the editor of a computer
journal, she did not examine Babbage's notebooks and
drawings, now in the Science Museum in South Kensington,
and her book contains virtually nothing of interest on the
Analytical Engine. On the whole, Irascible Genius is a
good deal less interesting than Babbage's own volume of
memoirs, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London,
1864), and it is no more balanced, and not very much
more accurate.

Unfortunately, the publication of Buxton's biography
would not solve the problem, for it is basically an
unorganized collection of extensive extracts from some
of Babbage's books, papers, and letters; and while many
of these are quite interesting, they are badly in need of
more coherent treatment, and there are many gaps in their
coverage.

Consequently, the student of Babbage's work must
return directly to the original sources. The manuscript
material is in three primary collections, on which this
study is based. Twenty volumes of Babbage's correspondence
are deposited in the British Museum; a similar quantity
of technical material is held by the Science Museum in
South Kensington; and the Museum of the History of Science
at Oxford University has Buxton's manuscript biography,
and, more important, the Babbage papers upon which it
was based.

Although Babbage's life and accomplishments
encompassed far more that was important than the invention
of his two calculating machines, the Difference and
Analytical Engines, it is on them that new research has
most been needed; consequently, the present study is
limited to material relevant to them. Babbage's early
mathematical work, his role in founding or reforming
several important scientific societies, and his many other
activities will scarcely be touched upon. But the first
chapter, by way of introduction, will provide a brief
sketch of Babbage's life, as it is the context into which
the calculating machines must be fitted. Likewise, this
study will not deal with the development of calculating
machines before or after Babbage. His work was completely
out of the mainstream of invention and construction which
led from the primitive desk calculators of the seventeenth
century to their widespread commercial success by the
beginning of the twentieth century, and later to what we
know as computers; Babbage was neither influenced by
what had gone before nor influential upon what followed
him.

The invention, development, attempted construction,
and eventual abandonment of the first Difference Engine
will be considered in the second chapter. The third chapter
deals with the invention of the Analytical Engine and its
period of primary development, from 1834 to 1847. The
fourth chapter deals with three later concerns of Babbage:
a project to interest the government in what he called his
Difference Engine No. 2; support for the Scheutz Difference
Engine, a simplified version of his own earlier machine;
and his resumption of work on the Analytical Engine late
in life, with the intention of attempting its construction.
The final chapter will provide some observations on the
general character of Babbage's work on the Analytical
Engine.
My own interest in Babbage was first aroused through
a research project on the history of calculating machines
and computers directed by Professor I.B. Cohen and Professor
Owen Gingerich on behalf of the International Business
Machines company for the purpose of developing an IBM
museum on computers and their history; this project still
continues. IBM has also provided generous financial and
logistical support for my own work. A trip to England to
study the manuscripts was supported by a grant from the
National Science Foundation. Assistance and access to
the sources has been provided by the staffs of the
Manuscripts Division of the British Museum, the Museum of the
History of Science at Oxford University, and especially
the Science Museum in South Kensington, London, where Dr.
H.B. Calvert has long had a special interest in Babbage.
Professor Gingerich has read this thesis and made
valuable suggestions, as has Kenneth Manning.

To all these and other individuals and institutions
who have helped me in ways large and small, I express
my gratitude.

Note on Sources and Quotations

The following abbreviations are used in the notes for
sources frequently cited. Further information will be
found in the Bibliography.

B.M.

The twenty volumes of Babbage correspondence
in the British Museum manuscript collections.

S.Kens.

The Babbage manuscripts held by the Science
Museum in South Kensington, London.

S.B.

The volumes called Scribbling Books, part
of the South Kensington collection.

G.S.B.

The Great Scribbling Book at South Kensington.

Buxton

The collection of Babbage manuscripts, together
with a manuscript biography of
Babbage by H. Wilmot Buxton, deposited
in the Museum of the History of Science at
Oxford University.

B.C.E.

Babbage's Calculating Engines, edited by
Henry P. Babbage, London 1889; a volume
reprinting the important published material
concerning Babbage's calculating machines,
begun by Charles Babbage and completed and
published after his death by his son
Henry P. Babbage.

P.L.Y.

Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, by
Charles Babbage, London, 1864; a volume
of memoirs.

Many of the quotations given in this thesis are from
manuscript sources, often from rough notes or drafts.
For the sake of increased intelligibility, punctuation has
been altered to a certain extent (principally by the
addition of commas), and spelling has been standardized;
capitalization and italics have not been altered.
Quotations from published sources are of course left
unchanged.